The Iowa Bike Expo has been one of the best times we have during the year! And This year did not disappoint! We are SO LUCKY to live in an awesome state!
BACooN
Our activities started on Wednesday afternoon as we participated in a BACooN Ride promotional video down at the Des Moines Register with RAGBRAI, The Bacon Fest dudes, and the Iowa Bicucle Coalition. I believe this is the first time we were in front of a green screen! Check out the VIDEO. This will be a FUN ride with plenty of Bacon, Beer and Bikes on June 28th along the Raccoon RIver Trail.
BIKE SUMMIT
The weekend started on Friday with the Iowa Bike Summit which is a day-long educational conference that trains engineers, community officials, and advocates on how to build better bicycle facilities. We've went in the past, but could not make it this year due to workin' the real job.
PACKING
We spent Friday night packing up all our gear, tents, and tables into the van so we could show up bright and early Saturday morning. The van was so jammed packed, we had a hard time getting my backpack to fit. But we DID make enough room for a super-sweet New Belgium Fat Tire Cruiser from Iowa Beverage. that we'd take donations for to purchase more Bike Fixtations. THANKS to Ashley and Mike for making the bike and some cool swag happen!
THE GOODS
We were stoked to bring our new Winter Caps and long-sleeved thermal this year. Both turned out to be "best -sellers". We had two new Jerseys too from our friends at Primal Wear . One All Black & White called the "Limited Edition" and the other lined with All Iowa's Trails and Cities. We had a new Limited Edition Caps too. We had a large array of T-shirts from the Bagger to the woman's floral to the ubber-popular BikeSexual. We gave away hundreds of BIKEIOWA stickers over the day.
THE EXPO
The number of vendors at the Expo was 120+.. Usually when you go to an expo, you might want to stop by 1 out of every 5 booths. I think the Iowa Bike Expo has the most quality vendors out there. There was not a booth there that we would not have spent 15-20 minutes at! It was a great mix of Bike Shops, Organizations and Clubs, Destinations (Trails, Cities, Bars, Restaurants) and Products.
We were down at the Iowa Event Center around 7am and got all set up in a prime spot. The Expo did not open until 10am, but the traffic started around 9am. Julie let me take off on the New Belgium Cruiser for a ride around the Expo to take some photos becuase last year, our booth was so busy, we did not get a chance to talk or see the other vendors. It still took me over an hour to pedal around the expo snapping photos and rubbin' knobbies with the other vendors and friends.
Al the gear was set up, we had the Cruiser donations ready to go, the laptop was fired up with the BIKEIOWA website front-n-center and we were ready for the crowds.
The Day FLEW by! I know there were many more folks at the expo this year, and the enthusiasm of the people who attended was amazing. I had so many conversations all day long about trails, destinations, the website, bikes, beer and friends.
A welcome addition this year was a Happy Hour at Rasmussen's Bike Shop! Luckily they were pretty dang close to us and we nabbed us a few glasses of brew as the expo winded down. #Refreshing
THANKS to Julie, Andy and Sherry for helping out all day long!
Fat Tire Dribble Contest
THANKS to Brent Honnald for volunteering to orchestrate this one-of-a-kind contest. We wanted to do something unique and I remember the last time I made my Fat Bike Tires tubeless and how I bounced the tire to get the sealant to set. I thought if folks could dribble a basketball, why couldn't they dribble a Fat Tire? I practiced a bit in my basement, and found it to be tougher than it looked. COOL. The contest went from noon to 4pm and folks were dribbling most of that time. Brent made 3 categories: Men, Women and Kids. I was prayin' that my Front wheel from my Fat Bike would still roll true after the hundreds of missed-dribbles and wobbles. It did!
KUDOS to those who participated!
Men's Champions
- Dustin - 131
- Kirk - 127
- Jesse - 36
Women's Champions- Angie- 81
- Barb - 70
- Kellie - 47
Kid's Champions- Noah - 69
- Sam - 43
- John H. - 33
New Belgium Cruiser Giveaway
As we said above, we are LUCKY to have a great partnership with the super-bike-friendly Iowa Beverage that they gave us a Fat Tire Cruise to give away at the Expo. It was the new Black 29-er that rides nice and smooth.
Sign-up was FREE. All we suggested was a donation to purchase more Bike Fixations for 2014. You may have seen Bike Fixations at El Bait Shop (2012) , Flat Tire Lounge (2013), Cumming Tap (2013) and the Nite Hawk (2013). These Bike Fixtations are a great addition to these establishments. Cyclists can make bike repairs and fill up their tires easily. The nest two Fixtations are slated for the Whistling Donkey in Woodward and Mickey's Irish Pub in Waukee. Each Fixtation costs over $1000 to purchase and install.
The Sign-up basket was over-flowing by the end of the day and we had raised over $200 in Bike Fixtation donations. We had a crowd gathering around 4:30pm when the giveaway took place.
Who was the lucky Winner? Ms. S. Cooney!!! She was lucky enough to be present in the crowd as we called her name! (she photo below). We had some other New Belgium and BIKEIOWA swag that we drew names for.
THANKS to everyone who donated $$!
PHOTOS
VIDEO
Thanks to Doug Balvanz and his RoadSharkTales video channel for capturing some of the moments.
CONCLUSION
As the day winded down and we looked around at everyone who was still there when the expo was closing, we KNOW 2014 is going to be a GREAT year for cycling in Iowa.
THANKS to everyone who came up to say Hello, and to everyone who bought a T-shirt, Jersey, Cap or Coozie, and to the Vendors we shared space and passion with!
THANKS to Mark, Tony, TJ and Crew who put on sucj h a GREAT event!
Here a shout out to some of our friends, sponsors and aquantances we spent some time with at the Expo: Bike Country, Barr Bike, Beaverdale Bikes, Rasmussen Bike Shop, Bike World, Bikes to You, Ichi Bike, RAGBRAI, Iowa Bicycle Coalition, Flat Tire Lounge, Bike Rags, Q7, All Ability Cycles, Boulevard Sports,Conneticut Yankee Pedaller, Primal Wear, Bar Mitts, Raccoon River Valley Trail Assocation, Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, Kaddy Rack, Ventus Customs, Will & Sara, Robby V, Bruce and Kyle, Mace, Kyle R., Hutch, Perry Bob, Ed & Jen, Nicky, John and Brette, Fatty Lumpkin's Dad, TBone, Mertz,Tom & Judy, and MANY MANY MORE!!
RIDE SAFE, KEEP WARM and we'll see everyone on the BRR Ride this weekend!